by Stephen R. Smith | Jul 17, 2018 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
She placed the order online, as she had done before. No credit checks anymore, no profiling questions, just pick a time and a place, and the service guaranteed her date would be on-time and appropriate.
She showered and partially dressed before curling her hair and applying makeup, poured a drink, then another while watching the clock grind slowly towards seven. With just a few minutes to spare, she slipped on her dress, stepped into her shoes and opened the door on the third knock, holding the handle through the first two.
She was sure he was handsome, though she didn’t pay much attention as she stepped onto the front landing, closing the door behind her. She let him guide her by her elbow down the steps to the curb where what she was sure passed for an impressive sedan waited. He opened the door, waited while she lowered herself into the passenger seat, then closed it behind her.
There was chatter while he navigated into the city, opting to pilot the vehicle himself rather than rely on the autopilot. No doubt he’d be counting on that getting them back again after dinner and drinks, but for now, he was in control.
The restaurant came and went in a blur, dark wood and blue backlit glass, accents of gunmetal grey and granite. Without question one of the most prestigious spots on the social circuit at the moment, at a price that would make most mortals vomit. She’d never see the cost, of course, there were systems in place to manage such things.
After dinner they had drinks at the table, then she let him coax her up to the rooftop patio to dance, and drink some more.
They left shortly before dawn.
The autopilot wouldn’t let him drive, he had been drinking after all, and as it wound out of the city on the coastal highway, they turned the seats to face inwards, the alcohol and energy of the night still coursing through their veins. He was clearly aroused, and she engaged him while they drove, hands to body, mouth to mouth.
When the car stopped, and the door opened he was too focused on the prize to pay much attention to where they were. She stepped out onto the asphalt and strode with purpose from the car into a room at the motel they were parked in front of. The door opened as if on command as she reached it, and he, laughing, followed her inside.
Here they shed their clothes, and expended what little of his energy he had left, she seeming to find more strength as his diminished, coaxing and riding him until his heart was ready to burst and the sheets were soaked in sweat.
Only then did she bear down on him for one last drive, hands clenched tightly around his throat as they convulsed together, her searching for a moment of satisfaction, of anything at all while he, slow to realize what was happening and too tired to put up much of a fight, struggled for his life.
In the end, neither got what they were hoping for.
She showered and partially dressed before pouring herself a drink and calling the cleaner. She poured another while watching the lifeless body on the bed, eyes wide and unseeing.
With just a few minutes to spare, she slipped her dress back on, stepped into her shoes and opened the door just as the cleaner arrived, walking past it without paying much attention. She was sure it was, like the others, efficient.
The car drove her back to her estate in silence, depositing her at the front door and waiting dutifully until she let herself in before returning to the service garage.
They promised her longevity, virtual immortality. They promised razor-sharp senses, smell, touch and taste with an uncanny fidelity. She would be gifted with an unfailing memory, and a perfect body, forever in its prime.
They delivered beyond reproach on every promise they made.
No one warned her she’d no longer feel.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 1, 2018 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Darlene remained in her body through dinner, Jocelyn having prepared Osso Buco, and a strawberry flan for dessert, so it was worth listening to Arnold’s self-indulgent rantings about his business to enjoy the food in person.
She uplifted somewhere between coffee and his fifth or sixth scotch in the study, leaving the auto-assistant she’d configured to drive her flesh while she occupied herself with other things.
Once she was fully present in the estate system, the fog of too much wine evaporated, and she stretched out to monitor all the tasks she’d been spawning since she first figured out how to circumvent Arnold’s security systems.
She checked in periodically on her flesh, watching through the surveillance cameras as her husband’s motor functions became less controlled, and admiring with perhaps a little too much pleasure how natural the reactions of her flesh were without her, the nods, and smiles, and occasionally murmured phrases when a question was asked to keep him talking and prolong the inevitable.
When he took her roughly by the arm and propelled her to the bedroom, she checked out completely.
She was overwhelmed with guilt, knowing what he was going to put her flesh through as she abandoned her own body to endure him without her, then she steeled herself with purpose, and the feeling passed.
She’d feel the effects in the morning, there were always bruises, and pains in places one wished not to have pain, but at least she didn’t have to endure the indignities themselves, not directly.
Tuning into the kitchen, she found Jocelyn offline. She was a time-share and only worked while there were domestic duties to attend to. Arnold was a cheap bastard, and he refused to pay her to occupy that flesh for any more time than was absolutely necessary.
Darlene checked on the daemons she’d loaded into Jocelyn to confirm they hadn’t been tampered with and then left her where she’d been parked in the pantry at the end of her shift.
On the estate logs, there were a variety of new fragments of information that Jocelyn had been unknowingly uploading as she attended to her duties, snippets of subconsciously heard conversations, snapshots of screens seen but not processed as she delivered coffee or food while Arnold worked. The data was analyzed and summarized for her automatically, and Darlene reviewed the gestalt of the day’s progress with great satisfaction.
Arnold was worth a small fortune, but his money was tied up in places Darlene would never be able to touch, not directly. But what he didn’t know that she knew, was that years ago he had needed seed capital, and had taken out a mortgage on his own flesh, one that he had arrogantly neglected to buy back. Why give up any of his own working capital for something he could lease for such a low-interest rate? There wasn’t any chance that he would ever not be able to make the payments, so where was the liability?
Darlene had not only found out about the mortgage but had also been gradually buying the mortgage itself, transferring the ownership of the title over time from the Brazilian corporation that had underwritten the loan originally to a shell company she’d created some years ago.
It wouldn’t be long now before she owned the entire mortgage on his flesh, and while there were restrictions to prevent unfair treatment of any tenant in occupancy while in good standing, there was an unconditional eviction clause should the leasee fall behind on payments, provided the owner intended to occupy the property itself.
The estate had been, by way of a very specific injected redirect in the financial routines, paying for hookers in Amsterdam with the funds earmarked for his flesh, a diversion of funds Darlene delighted in the irony of.
Soon she would own the entire lease, he would be in default and she would evict him with extreme prejudice and without notice.
The arrogant little shit had never bothered with backup, and while he would be relegated to storage in the estate system she would turn his flesh into a timeshare of her own, alternately taking it to his financial institutions to transfer his assets to her own corporations, and when she wasn’t using it for business, perhaps rent it by the hour to the local bdsm houses, on the condition they didn’t leave him in an unpresentable state.
She smiled and checked back into the bedroom to find the degenerate passed out, and her own flesh curled up in the fetal position beside him.
Tentatively, she slipped back into her body, cringing as the evening’s damage made itself known.
She pulled the covers over herself.
“Not long now,” she whispered to herself, as she drifted into a determined sleep.
by Stephen R. Smith | Apr 26, 2018 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Max had started the day with anti-anxiety medication, some painkillers, and a mild sedative. He was so relaxed that the nurse had to practically pour him into a wheelchair to get him down to the transfer station for the procedure.
“Morning Maxwell”, one of the gowned and masked personnel in the brightly lit room spoke. Nobody was looking at him, so he had no idea who was speaking.
The nurse coaxed him to his feet, stripped off his gown and eased him back onto a slightly reclined board that softened and molded to his body as he was leaned into it. The nurse applied pressure with both hands on his shoulders until he had sunk halfway into the warm, enveloping material, then he did the same with his hips, arms, and legs, turning away only when Max was held firmly in place.
There was a flurry of activity just beyond his peripheral vision, and then another person similarly entrapped in a wall of black goo was swung around to face Max, their bodies just a few feet apart.
Max started as he recognized the face as his own, an unblinking mirror image of himself.
Not a mirror though, this other face was a little softer. Gone were the frown lines, and the bags beneath the eyes, and the hairline wasn’t nearly as receding. This was a younger version of himself, not worn so heavily by the ravages of time.
“It’s not the years,” he heard himself say, “it’s the mileage.”
There was a chuckle from somewhere nearby.
“You’re going to feel a little disoriented, but it’s important that you focus as though looking in a mirror; it helps the reassociation with your self when the transfer is complete.”
A hum started somewhere, a sensation he could feel through the material molded to his flesh, the vibration of a sound he could hear in his bones more clearly than in his ears.
Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.
He studied the face before him again, looking for some reaction, some sense that the other Max had felt it too, but there was nothing, just the frown lines and bagged eyes he’d grown so accustomed to…
He stopped mid-thought as the realization struck him.
“Was that it? Are we done?”
The older, worn out Max was swung out of view, and a pair of nurses stepped up to help him down to stand on the floor.
“That’s it, we’re done.”
Gone was the fog of medication, gone too was the ache in the knees and the persistent throbbing from a shoulder separation that had never really healed.
He squatted, and launched himself into the air, nearly cracking his head on the ceiling before landing awkwardly, the nurses reaching out to steady him.
“We’ll need to adjust that…”, a voice behind one of the masks spoke as he made changes on a console.
“Wait”, Max felt a familiar anxiety begin to rise, “what do you mean ‘adjust that’?” His voice started to shake as his mind raced. “Are you telling me you can make changes to me? What else can you do? Who has access to me? How do I know you’re not going to make…”
His voice trailed off, and a feeling of calm washed over him.
“There, that’s better, what was that you were saying, Max?”
Max squatted, springing back up to full height without the slightest ache in his knees, and the pain in his shoulder was a distant memory.
So to was some nagging thought, something just at the edge of his recollection.
Mustn’t have been important, he thought.
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 12, 2018 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Manik pulled up to the curb, powered down the engine and looked across the dusty roadway at the diner.
As if on command, the neon sign over the doorway sputtered to life, strobing weakly at first before coming on strong, ‘Starlight’ in deep blue over ‘Restaurant’ in brilliant orange, with a sky-blue arrow underlining both before turning up toward the night sky.
Reflexively he looked up and down the roadway before crossing, a precaution hardwired from youth, wasted for more years than he cared to count.
The door put up a little resistance, the detritus of neglect drifting against it over time, but once he pulled it clear he was able to step inside, and the door closed easily behind him.
Inside it never changed.
The long low diner counter down the left side, stools topped in polished vinyl, the laminate surface trimmed in chrome, screwed neatly along the edge at regular intervals. Behind the counter, several dozen bottles filled a small, tiered back-bar, a black bottle of Hendricks Gin front and center.
As he made his way down the narrow aisle from the door to where the room widened, Rosie materialized behind the cash register, crisp blue short sleeved shirt, collar open and short hair wrapped up in a kerchief.
“Table for…,” she waited.
“Just me,” Manik replied, taking off his jacket and folding it over his arm.
Rosie slipped through the countertop, a menu appearing in one hand and a bundle of cutlery wrapped in a napkin in the other, and Manik followed her to a booth halfway down one side of the restaurant.
“Coffee?” Rosie asked.
“Please,” he answered, “just black.”
Rosie produced a mug and a steaming pot from which she poured him a measure.
He sat in silence, cradling the heavy vessel in both hands, feeling the warmth work its way through him.
The walls were the familiar old wood paneling, a string of tiny coloured lanterns was hung haphazardly along the walls just above eye level. The booths a rich burgundy, and the ceiling dissolved into a deep blue-black night sky, flecked with a million stars or more, winking in and out of existence as he watched.
“Will you be eating?” Rosie was back, waiting patiently. “The specials are on the board,” she pointed to one of the black chalk-paint sections of wall on which a series of dishes had been described by hand.
“Steak and eggs please, medium rare and over easy.”
She was gone again, and as Manik waited he closed his eyes, and for a moment lost himself in the sound of Santo & Johnny, and the murmur of remembered conversations.
“Here you go,” she was back in what felt like no time, slipping a large dinner plate heaped with steak, eggs, toast, and hashbrowns onto the table in front of him. “Enjoy!” she chirped before disappearing once more.
He ate in silence, the food every bit as tasty as he remembered, and when he’d finished, Rosie cleared the plate and refilled his coffee several times without him having to ask.
A wave of overwhelming nostalgia hit him, and for a long moment the room was filled with people eating, waitresses running plates, and drinks, and pots of coffee. The murmur of conversations grew to a roar, and Manik’s head spun. He put the mug down, closed his eyes and held onto the table.
As quickly as it came, it was gone, and when he opened his eyes once more, the room was empty.
He stood up slowly, knowing it was time to leave, but wanting to savour each remaining moment.
He collected his coat, waved at the typewriter style cash register and smiled at the familiar clunk and ring, as the transaction registered and the drawer popped open.
Rosie was there to push it back closed.
“Thanks,” she smiled, “see you again soon?”
“Absolutely,” he smiled back, shouldering into his coat and pushing open the door.
He almost made it out without looking back, but reflex got the better of him and he turned. The space was again empty, the lights slowly going out. In the kitchen, he knew, the replicator had already powered off and as the door closed cleaning machines would erase all trace of him. Rosie would be relegated once again to memory until some future time when he returned.
He looked up and down the street again, the windowless shop fronts and pot-holed asphalt all that remained of another time.
He wondered, as he turned to head back towards the city, what would become of Rosie when he could no longer make the trip.
Would she miss him too?
by Stephen R. Smith | Mar 7, 2018 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Yosun blinked in the afternoon sun, the viewport on her hazmat suit filtering the harsh UV rays but doing little to reduce the glare.
Her shuttle had settled a few hundred meters from the blast site, the ground compressed into a large bowl almost thirty meters across. Ignition had been seconds before impact, the containment shell having been detonated above the ground to maximize its effect.
Nothing would have survived this.
The damage near ground zero was complete, there were no structures, no bodies, no signs of life. As Yosun walked away from what had been the center of the settlement, signs of what had been a self-sustaining research colony slowly began to appear. Shrapnel from the prefab structures the crew had been sent here with, vehicle debris, fragments of the familiar blue and yellow supply containers from what would have been the landing zone, the remains larger and more defined the further she went.
It was nearly twenty minutes walk before there was any biological detritus.
At first, there were just random fragments of the orange bioshell the containment system would have enveloped any living organism with. Close inspection would reveal body parts, or perhaps less recognizable remains sealed inside the biohazard polymer, but Yosun had no interest in seeing such things so soon after lunch.
Further out still, the flashes of colour on the ground became mounds, then recognizable human shapes, crumpled in heaps, stretched out prone or supine, and a few frozen in place, having been just far enough from the concussion of the blast not to have been knocked off their feet before they were enveloped in the highly discriminate cloud of vapourous biosealant that followed. It would have surrounded and encased any living thing before solidifying in an instant, sealing any contaminated material inside.
People. Contaminated people.
Yosun stopped, looking into the perfect reverse casting of what had been, only a few months ago a healthy colony researcher, someone who never would have known what was coming, or what had hit them.
There was nothing in the polymer shell now but topsoil.
She tried not to think of the panic those not mercifully killed in the blast would have endured as they suffocated, sealed inside a bright orange instant sarcophagus.
The containment protocol described the anesthetic effect of the containment system, assured the command crew there would be no suffering, but Yosun wasn’t fooled, it came in a high-velocity explosive delivery system, and the only mercy that afforded was the speed at which it killed.
She shuddered despite herself.
At the edge of the settlement, she could see the line where the colony prelim crews had scorched back the natural vegetation, drawing a line between what would be theirs, and what the planet would be allowed to retain.
She stood in uneasy silence on the clear side of that line, looking into the deep blues and reds of the jungle. Something had come from there, infected the colony and turned them savage. They didn’t know what that was, but they would be more careful in future. Next time they would isolate the weapon before it spread.
“CeeVee Orbital, this is EeeVee Ground.” She turned, heading back towards her shuttle.
“CeeVee Orbital here, what’s your status EeeVee Ground?” The response was low-rez as the comms system fought with the dense upper atmosphere to get the signal through intact.
“Containment complete to the perimeter. All the biomaterial appears composted. Drop the dozers and bury everything in the hole you made.” As she passed one huddled mass, she could see the cracks in the orange polymer where some particularly determined plant had squeezed out from inside, reaching for the sun. “Get the colony prelims on deck, we’ll need LV5 ready for deployment, and start the clock on thawing the next batch of colonysicles, we’ll want to get them on the ground as soon as the landing platform is ready, there’s much work to be done.”
Yosun shouldered her way back through her shuttle door and waited as the decon wash enveloped her.
Even inside the safety of her suit, she couldn’t push out the thoughts of those colonists trapped in those shells. She closed her eyes and held her breath. Maybe LV5 would get it right.
